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EVI TOP LIST of Women in European Vision Research and Ophthalmology 2021

The European Vision Institute is thrilled to announce the “TOP LIST of excellent Women in European Vision Research and Ophthalmology 2021”.

We decided to list the awardees in alphabetical order as there are no cohesive reasons for any kind of ranking. All awardees are winners, and we want to send them our warmest congratulations. By this list, we explicitly want to strengthen cooperation rather than competition and foster new ideas, how to support women in our field.

Research organisations and clinics have a crucially important role to play in addressing gender inequality; not only for the benefit of their own ecosystem, but to contribute to progress in wider society. In ophthalmology the role played by women is immense with more than 50% of ophthalmologists being female. Meanwhile, female representation at leadership level drops dramatically with only 10% holding leadership positions.

In our survey, we tried to cover all areas from basic research to the clinic and from invertebrate vision to clinical trials. A wide field with the joint bracket to be excellent and influential women at all ages in the field. The most important issue are the specific answers of our winner to the questions about their own experiences as female leaders and the ongoing discussion what is or can be done to improve gender equality in Vision Research and Ophthalmology. Therefore we would be honoured if you could answer the four questions below.

Q1       Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

Q2       What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Q3       To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

Q4       The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

Reading the exciting answers of our awardees, we see there is a lot to do in the future. The European Vision Institute aims to promote connections between all women working in all fields related to Vision Research & Ophthalmology, to foster collaborations and mentoring, and overall, further increase the female profile in the field. We are open to all suggestions.

Sincerely,
Prof. Hendrik Scholl, President, European Vision Institute
Dr. Thomas Wheeler-Schilling, CEO, European Vision Institute

Emily Baird

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

Step 1: Recognising and working against the informal advantages often given to males in research starting early in their career, such as being invited to collaborate on someone else's research project (there is strong evidence that female PhD students, for example, are less often co-authors on papers), being invited to be a conference chair or to co-author a review paper and try to work against them

Step 2: Recognise that forcing gender quotas on committees etc in universities means that women in science get more to do as they are fewer in number but must, due to these quotas, be involved in a lot more administrative work. This automatically ensures that they have less time to spend on their research, supervision and teaching. Use quotas as a guideline but not a *must* or compensate women for the time spent on committees

Step 3: Stop thinking that having women on hiring/grant committees means that gender biases will be balanced out – women in science (especially those that succeeded despite gender biases) often also implicitly favour men. Instead, train everyone about biases and keep an open dialog about them.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Having the quality of my research and teaching recognised with a permanent lecturer position at Stockholm University.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

My research is my passion so my life is a constant blend of personal and professional. The greatest burden is that I cannot do everything I want in my research because my time is taken up with endless committee work as the 'token female'. Leaders need to realise that gender imbalances are enhanced, not solved, by making women do more committee work.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

That a career in research is constantly exciting, rewarding and challenging. That being given the opportunity to create knowledge and educate is a great privilege but that it is essential to be passionate about what you do, to believe in yourself and to be proud of your achievements.

INSECT Laboratory
Department of Zoology
Stockholm University

Svante Arrhenius vag 18B
114 18 Stockholm
Sweden

Judith S. Birkenfeld

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

1) I am absolutely sure that there are brilliant female scientists who are capable of doing high-level jobs at any time, so the most important step would be to just give them a try.

2) For that to happen, we need to normalize the image of women as scientists. I have stated this before, but I am happy to repeat: It should not be anomalous or rare to see women scientists working in high-level positions. A good example here in Spain is Rosa Menéndez López, the president of the Spanish National Research Council. She took the job with such ease that she left no doubt that she would be able to do it. But we need many more examples to implement this normality in our society. Efforts like The TOP LIST of Women in European Vision Research and Ophthalmology 2021 help tremendously to put some of us into the spot light and create references, but of course there are many more, so the active search and acknowledgement of these women is paramount.

3) Support and understanding from the people in power. Female scientists (as male scientists) consist of many subgroups who need support at different levels or from different angles. Our own supportive communities can only get us this far, since we are all sitting in the same boat. We need support from outside.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Every time my work as a whole is getting acknowledged is special to me, so being part of the TOP list 2021 will be my next answer.

The truth is that there was a moment right after finishing my PhD thesis defense, with a ticket to Boston in my pocket, ready to start my fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was the moment when I could be proud of the great work that I have done so far, but also for what I established for my future. This moment had an incredible impact on my life.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I have to admit, I like to work, so my personal and professional life is pretty interweaved, and I do not mind it too much. For me, the opportunity to do home office is the answer to a good work-life balance. The flexibility that comes with it, is perfect for me, and I get more things done that way. I sincerely hope that home office will be more accepted even after the pandemic.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

There will be only a few people who will give you a real opportunity in life to grow for your own good, so if one of these opportunities come along, take them and give your best.

Instituto de Óptica (CSIC)

Calle de Serrano, 121
28006 Madrid
SPAIN

Usha Chakravarthy

Q1.

3 most important steps

  1. Have high quality mentors (women and men) for all trainees
  2. Provide a safe and secure non intimidatory working environment to young female trainees
  3. Offer encouragement and support in taking on leadership roles

Q2 Professional achievement

Gass medal

Q3

I don’t think a change is necessary. Each person has a different requirement in terms of professional and personal life and space

Q 4

The world is your oyster and you can shape it. Have confidence and what ever career you choose do it well

Usha Chakravarthy, FRCOphth, PhD, CBE

Emerita and Honorary Professor of Ophthalmology and Vision Science

Queen's University of Belfast
Institute of Clinical Science
Royal Victoria Hospital

Belfast BT12 6BA
Northern Ireland
UK

Francesca Cordeiro

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

Support, at all stages I believe is absolutely crucial. I don’t think enough is being done to reach out, inspire and support young female doctors, science and medical students, leaving them to face many of these obstacles alone. So perhaps regular outreach events to provide relevant information and feature success stories shared by leading female figures in the field to inspire and persuade young minds could become a standard part of the process for A-Level and University students. In the specialist trainee stages, I believe similar events should become an established tradition that every young doctor should look forward to attending on a regular basis. Thirdly, once established as a specialist or PI, mentoring and continued collegiate meetings should be encouraged, to help those who may feel isolated.

Q2: What professional achievement you are most proud of?

Actually, performing translational research - working on things in the basic science lab that then go to early clinical trials. The DARC and AVID projects are examples of this.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I think this is difficult to define – we all aim for balance, don’t we, but it is up to the individual how this is achieved…

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

That it is a wonderful thing to study as you develop as a doctor or a scientist and realise how much there is to learn, whatever your stage in life. Uncovering hidden secrets of biology, how things work and most of all helping people with wonderful discoveries – your own if you are lucky – what can be more exciting than that?

Sarah Coupland

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

a) Encourage Vision Research and Ophthalmology at the very earliest levels of education – i.e. in secondary schools in all socio-economic areas and countries, as well as undergraduates in medicine and biology.

b) Inform the public and their families about the wonders (and the importance) of the eye at outreach activities, e.g. museums, interacting with people of all ages, particularly the young school pupils and undergraduates in medicine and biology.

c) At the above events, provide flyers or interactive media, which show photos of women in vision and ophthalmology and people of diverse backgrounds, as surgeons or as leading lab scientists (not only as nurses), to provide an image of possible attainment to the audience.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Being awarded the Naumann Prize for Ophthalmic Pathology in 2018 in Barcelona at the WOC. This is given out only every 4 years, after selection by an international committee.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

My professional and personal lives do indeed blend: it is difficult sometimes to draw boundaries between the two, particularly during the covid pandemic when virtual meetings are scheduled at all hours of the day! And yet it is important to do so, to maintain the success of both. One way I try to achieve a balance is by undertaking a range of outdoor activities – e.g. cycling or walking – which takes me away from my desk and enables me to be ‘unplugged’ for at least an hour a day!

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I would want her to know that it is not only possible for her to have such a career, but she could also be the best and a leader in either of these fields.

Prof. Sarah Coupland, MBBS, PhD, FRCPath
George Holt Chair of Pathology
Consultant Histopathologist @ Liverpool Clinical Laboratories
Vice President for Communications, Royal College of Pathologists

Lead of the Liverpool Ocular Oncology Research Group (LOORG)

Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology
Room 365, 3rd Floor
The William Henry Duncan Building, 6 West Derby Street
University of Liverpool

Liverpool, L7 8TX,
UK

Deniz Dalkara

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

I believe the key to diversity lies in creating equal opportunities from entry level to top level so far as funding is concerned. Availability of funds and their equal distribution will help accelerate the time to reach ideal diversity but it will not solve the problem entirely as there are still aspects of career development that are hampered and shaped by cultural and societal aspects. The changes in these areas might take longer to settle in, but by creating examples to follow establishments can play an active role in this. Putting the spotlight on women who have managed to make a career in Vision Research will clearly inspire more to follow. I also think it will be important to highlight their support networks who allowed them to succeed who play an equally important role as establishments but who often go unseen.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

I am most proud of my students and postdocs who have become independent thinkers and scientists in their own right. Interacting with many early career scientists and seeing them thrive and develop is thrilling.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

Blending personal and professional life is very important to achieve a balance: in my view, if we favor one in detriment of the other, frustration will inevitably follow. What should change first perhaps is the idea that we must sacrifice one to have the other. Then, more systemic changes might be necessary to truly allow everyone to benefit from a balanced blend of personal and professional life as the demands on what a researcher must accomplish seem to grow at an unprecedented and perhaps unrealistic rate.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I would want her to know that chance only favors the prepared minds and that there is a place for her in science / medicine if she keeps nurturing her passion.

Deniz Dalkara

Sorbonne Université,
INSERM, CNRS,
Institut de la Vision

17 rue Moreau
F-75012 Paris
France

Elfride De Baere

Q1 Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

I am a mid-career female who graduated as M.D. in 1996 and obtained my Ph.D. in 2002 in Belgium. Since 2009 I am Senior Clinical Investigator of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and Professor in Ophthalmic and Developmental Genetics at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of Ghent University (Full Professor since 2012 and Senior Full Professor since 2020). A recent NEJM study by Richter et al. dealing with women physicians and promotion in academic medicine showed that among medical students who graduated in a 35-year time frame, women in academic medicine were less likely promoted to higher faculty ranks. It is striking that the gap was not closed during the time frame of this study. So what are the three most important steps to narrow this gap from my own experience?

  1. Women are underrepresented as department chairs, program directors, members of funding bodies, promotion committees or editorial boards. Since these are important positions for career development and mentoring, a better representation in these key positions is needed to help break the glass ceiling. Apart from this, strong networks are an important factor for career advancement in my opinion.
  2. Many women physician-scientists have children, and most of them report obstacles because of their pregnancy, maternity or parental leave. In the period 2001-2012 I had three career breaks of 3.5 months each due to maternity leave. Eligible career breaks that can be considered for extensions of grant or job applications is a second step that can advance the gender balance.
  3. A burden of family responsibilities and difficulties in work-life balance can lead to drop out of women in science and medicine. An optimal childcare, support from the partner or family support is a third crucial step that can help reduce obstacles.

Q2 What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

I find it difficult to pinpoint this to one achievement. If I need to pick one, I am most proud of the capacity building within my team, at Ghent University, at the national and at the European level. In my opinion the strength of a research team is determined by the research capabilities and experience of the people rather than the reputation of the institute or university, projects or funding. I am proud to have inspired people to pursue a career in genetics and vision research. Locally I built up a very talented research team that currently consists of 4 fabulous post-docs (one of which is bioinformatician) and 8 PhD students, 2 research associates and several master students (www.debaerelab.com). With my team I study the genomic basis of inherited eye disorders such as inherited retinal diseases (IRD) and developmental eye conditions. As a physician-scientist I also have a clinical appointment at the Center for Medical Genetics Ghent (CMGG), where I lead a molecular lab offering genetic testing for rare eye diseases. I have initiated and coordinate a multidisciplinary research consortium RARE-MED for precision medicine in rare diseases that allowed to attract three excellent research professors. I am very proud of my strong international network. Currently I am coordinator of a H2020 network, the Marie-Sklodowska Curie Innovative Training Network entitled ‘StartT - Training researchers to Diagnose, Understand and Treat Stargardt Disease, a Frequent Inherited Blinding Disorder’. It started on 1 October 2018 (www.startn.eu) and involves 14 highly talented Early Starting Researchers that represent the future of excellence in vision research. Since 2020 I coordinate the EJP RD project Solve-RET, aiming to solve missing heritability in inherited retinal diseases using multi-omics. Moreover, I am proud to be recognized as an excellent female scientist as an elected member of AcademiaNet, of the Program Committee of The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) (BI section) and of the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG). In 2012 I was awarded the prestigious Inbev-Baillet Latour Prize for Clinical Research and in 2019 the Prize Fund John W. Mouton Pro Retina. I also consider it as a strength I can translate science to society and healthcare, as president of the Belgian College of Genetics and Rare Diseases, by establishing guidelines for good medical practice in genetics, by implementing innovative technologies in healthcare, by education of colleagues, patients and lay people and by advocating top-level quality of and budget for accessible and reimbursed personalized medicine in Belgian healthcare.

Q3 To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I must admit that my personal and professional life has been blended to a large extent during my career and that my work-life balance is under pressure. An illustration of this are poor sleeping habits already for some years. Apart from people management I consider time management as the biggest professional and personal challenge. Apart from my key tasks, lot of time goes to grant applications, committees and administration. What should change? My work-life balance could be improved by reducing the administrative burden and by organizing more efficient meetings. The recent recruitment of a local project manager and administrator who also supports teaching already greatly improved my ‘quality of life’. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to think differently and to speed up virtual solutions. Although I definitely prefer live connections with my team and colleagues, and although I love to travel, I discovered opportunities for more efficient time management. Although grant applications are quite time-consuming, stressful and competitive, I do not plan to significantly change this activity as this is something I mostly enjoy, especially if the outcome is successful. There is an evolution in the type of grants I apply for however, with an increasing number of local, regional and European consortium grants the last years.

Q4 The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I would love to hear which major problem(s) in science/medicine she would like to tackle and which

solution(s) she is thinking of. I would like to know more about her dreams and about role models she knows of. I would tell her about females such as Elizabeth Blackwell (maybe less known), Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin (as a geneticist), Jean Bennett - a pioneer in retinal gene therapy-, Emmanuelle Charpentier & Jennifer Doudna for their groundbreaking research on gene editing, a booming field in vision research and ophthalmology. I would also talk about Ursula von der Leyen, who was trained as a gynecologist, has seven children and has made a career as the first woman in history to become the E.U.'s Commission President. In addition, I would mention Kamala Harris, a woman of color who is the first female vice president of the United States and who was greatly inspired by her Indian mother who was a cancer researcher. Lastly, I would advise her to be ‘annoyingly curious’, to dream (think big!), to follow her intuition and to have a persevering attitude in work and life.

Elfride De Baere, MD, PhD

Center for Medical Genetics Ghent (CMGG)
Campus Ghent University Hospital,
MRB1, entrance 34, room 110.029,

Corneel Heymanslaan 10
9000 Ghent
Belgium

Karin Dedek

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

To increase the number of women in Vision Research and Ophthalmology (in Science in general), we should make women more visible by appointing them to leadership positions at universities, science organizations, and advisory boards. Also, we need to be more open to shared professorships and other ways to facilitate combining personal and professional life. However, diversity is not only about increasing the number of women but also increasing the number of people from diverse backgrounds, e.g., non-academic backgrounds, by offering mentoring and peer coaching at all academic levels.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Seeing my students and former PhD students grow. Having achieved a permanent position in Retina Research that allows me to follow my own research agenda.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I feel I am not only doing science when in the lab or in the office, but often things are working in the back of my head and pop out when I am riding my bike to work or am outside. Being outside is important for my mental health and helps me keep the balance.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I want her to know that she is allowed to go into every directions she finds interesting. There are no limits in what she can achieve if she sets her mind to it.

Prof. Dr. Karin Dedek

University of Oldenburg
Institute for Biology and Environmental Sciences
Neurosensorics/Animal Navigation

26111 Oldenburg
Germany

Anneke den Hollander

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

I believe having good role models is most important to stimulate young women to climb the career ladder. An obstacle for young women might be the fear that it would be difficult to combine a career with family life. I have never considered my career as an obstacle for starting a family. I have two children who are now age 14 and 16; although the first years were challenging I never felt that being a mother was an impossible combination with my career. I hope the top list of Women in European Vision and Ophthalmology will be an inspiration for young women to follow their dreams and that we will be role models for them to whom they can always reach out to for advice.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Looking back there were many exciting scientific discoveries throughout my career which I am very proud to look back at. In any case, I am most proud of the 23 young researchers who obtained their PhD degree under my supervision during the past 10 years, and who were the drivers of many of these scientific discoveries. It has been a great pleasure to see them grow and blossom, both scientifically and personally.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

It is very important to guard your personal life and to have activities you love doing outside of work, in particular since a top career can be demanding both physically and mentally. Next to that it is important to be flexible, and to have good support from people around you – in particular when the children are still young.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I would tell her that she should follow her dreams, because have passion and ambition will get you to where you want to go. The sky is the limit!

Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre
Department of Ophthalmology

Philips van Leydenlaan 15
6525 EX Nijmegen
The Netherlands

Helene Dollfus

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

  • that maternity leave should not be a brake to carrers for young females
  • facilitate and finance post doctoral positions taking into account family situation (including child care cost that is often a brake)
  • no discrimination in senior jobs for females versus males ( including salaries) and encourage females to take leading positions
  • absolutely no tolerance for gender ( or any) discrimination for a job in vision science

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

=> I will let you know at the end of my career ... ;-) ... (but I am proud of combining medical and scientific activities although it is a daily challenge )

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

- facilitate access to research labs/tools/ institutes "à la carte" to give females with young kids the opportunity of taylor their research time at the best of their other obligations (including week-ends when a spouse can take care of the children for instance )

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

1) Never give up 2) Never give up 3) Never give up.

Prof. Helene Dollfus

CHU de Strasbourg - Hôpital Civil

1 Place de l'Hôpital - BP 426
67091 STRASBOURG CEDEX
France

Susan M. Downes

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

Support and foster a mentoring system; make sure that you as a senior women consider other women for promotion, and not just the most 'visible' person; be a good role model

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Becoming a professor of Ophthalmology; the second female ever in the Oxford Eye Hospital (the first being Ida Mann in 1941).

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

Really make sure that the work life balance is addressed. Being a clinician, teacher trainer and researcher can take up a significant amount of time.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

Ophthalmology and research in the field of Ophthalmology offers enormous opportunities. For me it has been a wonderful career from observing new patterns of disease, identifying genetic predisposition to disease, and delivering interventions that help patients see better. For example: carrying out cataract surgery which leads to significant visual improvement to lasering vascular tumours in the eye to preserve vision for example in an only eye. Research has given me the opportunity to explore many different types of retinal disease, and their natural history and outcomes with and without treatment. Being a clinician scientist has given me the opportunity to work throughout my career alongside inspiring colleagues and patients. Learning from each other, and passing on skills to the next generation of clinician scientists, gives me great pleasure.

Susan M. Downes

MSc, MD, FRCOphth
Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon,
Professor of Ophthalmology

University of Oxford,
Oxford Eye Hospital, OUH NHS Trust

Nicole Eter

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

Even today, it is still more difficult for women than for men to combine career and family. In my opinion, the three most important steps to get more women into top management positions in ophthalmology are special grants for women (e.g. postdoctoral fellowships), flexible working hours, and better networking.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

It is difficult to single out one achievement in particular, as many things have intertwined in my career so far. I am proud of good research results, good publications, the introduction of new surgical methods, and satisfied patients. What I am perhaps most proud of is the introduction of a national registry in ophthalmology in Germany: oregis.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I think that at a certain level you can't separate your personal life from your professional life. The two merge. Running a university department, being active in research and patient care, and being involved in ophthalmology committees at home and abroad is definitely not a nine-to-five job. Only when you also view your work as a hobby can you accomplish things at a high level.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I would tell the girl to live her dreams and do everything she can to achieve the dream of a career in science and medicine, because I couldn't imagine a more beautiful profession.

Nicole Eter, MD

Professor and Chair

Dept. of Ophthalmology
University of Muenster Medical Center

Domagkstr. 15
48149 Muenster
Germany

Christina Fasser

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

the opportunity to been able to motivate Patients with retinal degenerations, scientists, and ophthalmologists as well as young scientists globally to promote and to continue to promote research in this area in view to find a cure for these blinding diseases.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

In my generation as a blind advocate i had to give priority to my professional life to be able to work within the patient organisations with the result that my private life suffered. In the future women should get the necessary support to be able to combine professional life as well as family life.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

Science is a fascinating area with a lot of interesting challenges. Dare to dream, be open to new facts and recognise open doors, to get your dreams true. do not let you be intimidated and fight any discrimination.

Christina Fasser

Rüfistrasse 4b, CH-8753 Mollis (Switzerland)

Katrin Franke

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

Most people I know who left academia did this because of the difficulty to reconcile work and family life. I believe scientific institutions have to implement better support structures that help scientists at all levels to overcome this challenge. And, equally important, the scientific community has to normalize having both a successful career and a healthy life outside academia. I am very happy to see more and more examples successfully living a balanced life in academia over the last years.

In addition, to promote diversity in science I am convinced that it is critical to (i) establish objective hiring procedures at all levels, starting at the undergraduate stage and up to professors, to overcome internal subjective biases and (ii) to implement transparent institutional leadership and decision making. The latter is important to make sure that everyone interested in actively shaping the scientific community has the opportunity to do so.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

I have always been most proud of achievements that resulted from a group effort and which would not have been possible without teaming up with other scientists that might have very different expertise. For example, I am very proud of the first study that originated from my own group, with the first PhD and master student I supervised as shared first authors. It was a great experience to jointly work on this project, from designing experiments to seeing it published! In addition, I am proud of a recent collaborative project with a lab in the US that started at the beginning of the pandemic. Despite not being able to travel and all difficulties related to the COVID situation, as a team we were able to coordinate experiments and analysis across continents and are now in the process of successfully completing the study.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

A healthy work life-balance has always been important to me and I have experienced that it is critical to keep up efficient and productive work. As a community, we have to make sure that every scientist can figure out how to achieve the best personal balance for herself and himself, respectively. Personally, I try to not work at all in the evenings and limit work on the weekends to a couple of hours maximally. One of the great advantages of science compared to many other disciplines that I value a lot is its great flexibility, which in my experience makes it much easier to balance professional and personal life.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I would encourage her to always follow her passion, as working on something every day that you care about and that fascinates you represents a rare opportunity. In addition, I would like her to know that science in particular is fun and an exciting adventure because of the following reasons: you will always be working with a team of interesting people that share your passion, you can decide which problems are most exciting to you and design experiments to solve them, and when you do so, for some time you might be one of very few people in the world who know the answer to this question – how cool is that?!

Dr. Katrin Franke

Institute for Ophthalmic Research, Tübingen University,
Center for Integrative Neuroscience, Tübingen University,
Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Tübingen,

72076 Tuebingen,
Germany

Kate Grieve

Kate Grieve PhD

Scientific Director

Paris Eye Imaging unit

Quinze Vingts National Ophthalmology Hospital,

Paris, France

Antje Grosche

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

Many women are fascinated with working in science, including vision research and ophthalmology. Getting more women into PI positions requires several approaches. Beyond specific grants, networking platforms at all levels of an academic career would help discuss concerns, find appropriate solutions or discover new options, and, of course, meet role models-all of which would help keep talented women in science. Even if this is not specific to women, but I think they would especially benefit from it - a good mentoring system can make a lot of difference. And finally, even if it has been known for long - of course there is still a need for clever solutions to simplify the combination of professional and family life, because it must be possible to live both fulfillingly in order not to lose those women who do not want to do without a family - with good reason!

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Since my studies in molecular medicine, I have dedicated my entire research life to the study of ocular and retinal development, retinal diseases and potential targets for new treatment approaches for diabetic retinopathy or AMD. I have been particularly fascinated by the most important retinal glial cells - Müller cells - since my PhD in the laboratory of Andreas Reichenbach. Since then, I have been intensively studying their physiology in health and disease. Very early in my career, when I established my own lab as a ProRetina professor in Regensburg, I pioneered the use of novel tools for thorough expression profiling of this important retinal cell type. At LMU, my team is now using these valuable datasets to shed light on the biology of Müller cells from very different angles, such as gaining new and exciting insights into their contribution to retinal immune homeostasis, balancing complement activity, or exploring pathways central to their close interaction with microglia, the resident tissue macrophages of the retina, or how Müller cells in the human retina differ functionally from their peripheral counterparts. Pursuing all of these exciting lines of research brings us closer to the overarching goal of finally understanding the underlying glial biology well enough to ultimately use this knowledge to develop the still much-needed novel treatments for retinal diseases such as diabetic retinopathy or AMD. So it is hard to define THE one outstanding achievement to be proud of on the scientific side, as all the pieces of the puzzle are important to put the big picture together. What I am really happy about is that I have already been able to "infect" quite a number of students and young researchers with my enthusiasm and conviction to study Müller cells, which are often overlooked but are such an important factor for a functioning retina and proper vision.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

Working as a PI in science and vision research comes with challenges that all researchers face - managing your research group, publishing, networking and building collaborations, continuously securing funding to keep science going, and not to mention - fulfilling teaching obligations. Certainly, these multiple tasks are challenging and require fairly strict time management. But of course, being a PI provides the freedom (at least to some degree) to schedule things as you need them - for example, revising papers or writing grant proposals while I wait for my son to finish his soccer practice. And of course, truly free weekends without working on grant proposals, publications, or organizational emails are scarce. What should change in this regard? Well, I think the Corona pandemic has made us realize that not all meetings (faculty meetings, committees, work on review panels) need to be in person. I hope that we can keep some of the positive things that we learned during this very difficult time, as it tremendously reduces the need to travel (which is often difficult to coordinate as a mother) and saves a lot of time that can alternatively be used as family time without losing effectiveness in what you accomplish as a researcher.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

If you are driven by curiosity to understand how our bodies work or what makes them sick, and if you are looking for a way to continue asking question after question with tools at hand to solve some of those fascinating puzzles, then academic research is one of the best places you can be. It is never going to be boring! Being a woman in science is still a challenge, of course, but I have never found or experienced that as a disadvantage, as many things are changing in the community to support women in academia. So with passion for what you do, a sense of creative time management, and confidence in your own ideas, a career in science is possible! And definitely, choosing a career in science does not mean choosing not to have a family. There are always ways to combine the two.

Department of Physiological Genomics
BioMedical Center - BMC
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Großhaderner Str. 9
D-82152 Planegg-Martinsried
Germany

Esther Hoffmann

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

I believe that women often get stuck in their roles as housewife, mother and family manager. I furthermore believe that assumptions that are made on the basis of cultural stereotypes, hinder female researchers to gain the same success than men. They are paid less and offered less interesting jobs. Often, they have to wait longer to reach the same position as a male colleague. The self-positioning (without being too much “gender-like”-active) of females in ophthalmology would be an important step. More self-confidence would be important. And the fact that career, being sexy and successful and a great mother can only be achieved by us, the females…Last but not least- Finding a good mentor, perhaps having/searching for several mentors in a careers/life time, are incredibly significant for success and joy within a complete life.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

I am most proud of receiving the first ever full professor position (W2) in Germany for Glaucoma and childhood glaucoma. Furthermore, the founding of the German Childhood Glaucoma Center (2017) in Mainz is the second success experience in my career.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

Difficult question. The extent fluctuates depending on the professional workload, the expectations, deadlines etc, and it fluctuates depending on the family support, health and other personal situation. It should be balanced but never is. Happiness and satisfaction can come from both, personal and professional life but should mainly come from oneself. It should be, however, a harmonic coexistence.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

Find mentors to guide you in the beginning. Follow your vision. Believe in your passion.

Burn for it.

Zitat Buddhism: “Start”, says the master, “then you will learn." "I don't know enough yet," the student replies. "Then wait," says the master. "How long?" the student asks. "Until you start," says the master.

(I have a 12 year old daughter, indeed)

Esther M. Hoffmann, MD

Prof. of Ophthalmology
Head of Glaucoma Division
Head of Childhood Glaucoma Center

Langenbeckstr. 1
55131 Mainz
Germany

Martine Jager

Q1 Decisions on promotions are still usually made by men and otherwise the criteria have been set by men in the past. Women may not naturally know these criteria or like them.

However, if a woman or somebody from a minority background wants to get a promotion, she has to learn what is considered important. Lessons from people who have been successful can be helpful. Do promotions depend on how much funding you have been able to get? On your papers? Often, research is considered more important than the number of patients you see. Do you know the people in charge, and more importantly, do they know who you are? Are you visible enough?

One cannot learn how to be a leader, but management skills can be learned. How to run a project, how to understand a financial report, run a meeting properly, set up a conference, to present your work.

I saw how international contacts work when I did my PhD with an internationally-renowned professor, where friendships with colleagues were very important for developing new projects. Because I learned this early, I was able to use my own connections in building European projects. The most important steps are to educate young people in learning the ways of the current leaders.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

I am extraordinarily proud of all the students and PhD students who started projects without any knowledge of the area and ended up writing a paper or getting a PhD. Perseverance, learning how to do an experiment, writing, collaborating: they learned and advanced in life. My other proudest achievement was that as president-elect of ARVO, I started to make the organisation much more diverse by "planning" diversity in committees. Comparing membership data with appointment data on committees, revealed that committees were overly filled with male Americans. Together with Joanne Angle, I actively appointed international members and women on committees where that was possible and stimulated them to apply for those where they could be elected. The statistics show the changes that occurred following 2006-2007. I learned from this, that the powers at the top can have an enormous influence on diversity.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I love what I do, and spend much of my free time on what others might call work but what I call a hobby, which is doing research. Attending conferences is also considered work, but for me it is an opportunity to meet with some of the best friends that I ever made. They share the same interest and we can discuss how to make progress in research or medical care. I do not split life into work and non-work, and will also answer questions about eye diseases outside work time. Not everybody may wish to do this, and I know many young people do wish to separate these two compartments of life.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I would like to hear from a 12-year old where her passion is: science is a big area, as is medicine. I would advice her to take the right subjects in high school so that she will be able to later choose medicine, medical research or biology when she goes to university. And to do what she likes. When you study medicine, you can later decide whether you wish to see patients or follow a scientific career.

Martine J. Jager, MD, PhD

Department of Ophthalmology
Leiden University Medical Center

PO Box 9600
2300 RC, Leiden,
The Netherlands

Aki Kawasaki

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

The benefits of diversification along multiple lines --gender, race, sexual orientation and religion, expertise to name a few—are well known but strategies leading to a true culture of diversification remain difficult to implement. A culture of diversification is not a simple matter of setting quotas or organizational protocols but requires an internalized attitude and a true commitment to equality from each individual at all levels of the organization.

In my opinion, 3 important steps to make the medical field more gender-equal are:

  1. Ensure diversity (gender and others) among admissions, retention and promotion committees for your institution. Encourage mentorship in diversity and gender-equality from the top-down.
  2. Eliminate disparities in salary and resource allocation and leadership positions that still exist, particularly between women and men in medicine. These disparities are overt displays of gender bias, which are not based on differences in the percentage of women and men entering medical school or pursuing a career in academia.
  3. Recognize and address implicit (unconscious) bias. It is useful to have some established guidelines already in place for addressing implicit bias. Periodic collection and publication of diversity metrics can engage dialogue on the topic.

No doubt, gender equality and diversification takes work. It requires systemic and regular review of institutional policies in equity and diversity at all levels. It requires internal controls and updates on such policies with transparent communication of the results. It means integrating non-discriminatory language in both written and oral communications. It means allocating resources (time , personnel and money) into promoting such policies. It means commitment, at the individual level and at the institutional level. And we are certain to get there.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

The professional achievement, which still leaves me bemused, is being selected as a jury member for the Daylight Award from 2016 to 2020. The Daylight Award honors daylight research and use of daylight in architecture. As a researcher, it is encouraging to know that research and information in Vision and Ophthalmology is widely cross-disciplinary with relevance in non-medical domains, such as architecture.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

My approach to blending personal and professional life includes setting reasonable goals , defining part-time hours and delegating tasks when possible . These are applicable on both ends, personal and professional

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

Despite current gender disparities in science and medicine, it is important to respect toward yourself and toward others as this creates and fosters a working environment of innovation, growth and excellence. Be honest, be fair, be non-judgmental and be a role-model… for all persons.

Susanne Koch

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

An important step would be to establish more tenure track professorships in order to offer planning security for researchers at an early stage of their career.

Providing more funding to support female scientists with children would help to further their scientific career.

It’s also important to showcase the achievements of women in science through the media to inspire young women.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

I am proud of providing insights into how gene therapy of the eye in preclinical models could be successful.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I invest a lot of time and effort into my projects, but it isn’t much of a sacrifice for me as I enjoy my work. I am aware that time is limited – it’s impossible to do everything, but you can accomplish a lot in a short amount of time if you maintain focus and concentration.

It would be helpful if one could spend much more work time on research and science and not being distracted by continuously increasing obligations to perform administrative activities.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

It is incredibly exciting to discover new things. The key to scientific discoveries is to stay curious and iteratively ask like a child the “why”, “how” and “for what” questions.

Susanne Koch

Department Pharmazie
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Butenandtstr. 7, Haus C
81377 München
Germany

Susanne Kohl

Q1 Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

I personally feel that women today do have quite equal opportunities. Much of the disproportion of females and males in science when comparing number of students, number of PhDs and women in leading positions is – from my point of view – not so much influenced by the opportunities or draw-backs, but rather also a choice by the respective women, including myself. I do believe that many women today are often well supported and promoted, but in the sequential steps of career do not decide to go for it. The reasons can be quite simple: partner, children, family surrounding, or you just do not dare.

I do believe though that the upcoming generations are more ambitious.

But: What steps in general are most important?

A supportive private environment

A supportive supervisor and mentor

Networking early in career

The strong will to succeed and take the lead

Q2 What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

What I am proud of? First of all, my two sons.

Professionally: Being dedicated to the field of vision research for 25 years and still holding on. Seeing what we as a scientific community have achieved in terms of knowledge and understanding in this time. Working in the field of inherited retinal dystrophies, I do believe that we know almost all genes associated with these disabling disorders; who would have thought so 10 years ago, when the human genome project was completed.

For my very person: Of course I am proud of the one or other high impact publication with unique novel findings!

Q3 To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

This is my very personal view. Being really successful in science does mean high dedication that goes beyond a 9-to-5, 5-days a week. This means that you have a shift of work-life balance to the “work” side. This does not need to be negative, if your work, i.e. science, is also your hobby, and fulfils you. It is and needs to be a dedication. But if you also have other interests and obligations, or want to also focus on raising your children, this can lead to misbalance and overload.

The Z generation is said to have a strong focus on work-life balance; it will be interesting to see how this changes careers in science. Science and professional life in general has become incredibly fast. Expectations are tremendously high: “higher, faster, farther”. What may need to change is that we are allowed to take more time, slow down and separate our routine work from the scientific work. You need free space to develop new ideas, and tools to find easy initial funding also for novel (risky) projects or project for which you do not yet have expertise and preliminary results.

Today many innovative funding measures are limited to “young” researchers within a certain (short) time period after PhD – Why? Again, if you decide on having children and spend time, these time periods can be too short.

As I like to say, in the ideal world, I would wish there were more fixed positions, more general budgetary funds and more financial support for technical assistance.

Q4 The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I would tell her and also each 12-year-old boy, try to do what you love (or think that you might love). But do not stick to a path that turns out to be a dead end – either in terms of career or interest. Be open and flexible. Step out and rethink what shall be your path ahead, and do not fear starting over again.

If the young person is equally interested in science and medicine, I would tell him/her that science is more fun, but medicine has more established supporting instruments and financial background which can facilitate a career.

Susanne Kohl

Institute for Ophthalmic Research
Centre for Ophthalmology
University of Tübingen

Alexandra Koschak

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

  1. Double career models: women AND men are as committed to their partner’s career as to their own; means also 50:50 in household and childcare. This applies to female careers in general and is something to be accepted by the society!
  2. Aim for a 50:50 gender balance at ALL STAGES of a research career and in committees - this should not be an exception but a simple rule.
  3. More funding options for early stage researches combined with flexible child care options offered by the research institution – calls should be open for female and male young researchers

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

I am proud of having my own research team with motivated young researchers that combine scientific interest, excellence and integrity with skills of social competence.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

When I started as a PhD student I was told that I should never thinking about science, not even while having a shower. The truth is that being dedicated we anyways never stop thinking! We should not only allow our mind and body to relax but also take care that we and our colleagues take our time to refresh our soul.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I would like her to know that there is nothing that she can not achieve because she is a girl but she should not be surprised that she will meet people that think so.

Ao. Univ. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Koschak

Universität Innsbruck
Institut für Pharmazie
Pharmakologie und Toxikologie
Center for Chemistry and Biomedicine

Innrain 80 – 82/III
A-6020 Innsbruck
Austria

Petra Liskova

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and > Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

Flexibility- although COVID-19 has generally changed view on home office many employers still require physical presence at work when it i tis not necessary as for the tasks to be done.

Considering motherhood limitation- despite EU recommendations to take off from career length 1.5 years for each child this is often not the case in national settings, part-time working mother is considered by many grant agencies equal to full-time working people.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Scientifically it is identification of two genes implicated in rare disease called posterior polymorphous corneal dystrophy, at social level it would be establishing ophthalmic genetics as a subspeciality in the Czech Republic which improved counselling of patients with rare ocular disorders and their families.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

If your job is your hobby at the same time to achieve balance is very difficult even when you have 100% flexibility. I try to have very accurate time management.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

That it is a good choice as the opportunities in science and medicine are very broad, there is always something interesting happening and that a real scientist never gets bored in her life.

Petra Liskova

Department of Ophthalmology,
First Faculty of Medicine,
Charles University and General University Hospital in Prague,

Prague,
Czech Republic

Anat Loewenstein

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

Since there are cultural and educational reasons for this I believe that reparatory steps can be taken:

  1. Academic organizations can prepare grants dedicated for women only.
  2. Committees and boards, as well as pharma ad boards should pay attention to the number of women and increase it.
  3. Women should have access to a mentorship program dedicated for their careers.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of? 2

The biggest accomplishment of my professional career is my privilege to lead the biggest department of ophthalmology in Israel, including 65 ophthalmologists and many optometirs, orthoptists, nurses, technicians. Under my leadership not only did the department prosper clinically surgically and academically but 6 full professors emerged (3 of them are women). A few of my students became chairs of units or departments all over Israel. For each of my trainees I was able to secure a fellowship position and a desirable academic position upon their return (in our institute or in others).

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

For me personal- professional balance is the most important thing in life. I cannot, and could not through my career continue with full volume career without such balance. During my career when such conflict occurred and was not resolved I could not enjoy and continue my professional specific effort. Yes, there are things I needed to give up to achieve this balance. My advice is to set up the goals and plans with your family and achieve their full support. This is the only way to do it.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

Already to Emma, My 6 year old granddaughter I am trying to convey my deep belief that she should work hard, trying to make the best of all the qualities and strengths she has, trying to improve the areas where this is possible and making the most of every opportunity. I strongly believe that persistence and endurance are the best ways for success. Talent alone is not enough. At the same time I want her to know that having a loving caring and supporting family is crucial not only for happiness but also to the career development itself. Without it her career will not be the same and will not bring her the same amount of satisfaction.

Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Centre (TASMC),
Professor of Ophthalmology and Vice Dean, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Birgit Lorenz

Q1 Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

1. Universities must actively establish and live gender equality. It is important that courageous role model women be part of decisive bodies within the university. Instruments like the Athena Swan Charter have been devoloped and should be popularised more widely. This has to be actively supported by the dean of the medical faculty.

2. Mentor-mentee programs are crucial and must be implemented early in the professional career starting already in the pregraduate era. The engagement of the mentors needs to be officially recognised, for example also in their CV when applying for an academic position.

3. Networking and special training programs for young researchers and clinician scientists are essential to build up the necessary self-estime and self-confidance in women that they are as capable as men to become leaders in their field and that work-life balance including motherhood is possible but needs the necessary infrastructure of the involved institution.

Q2 What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Accomplishment of my PhD thesis as single mother as the first step in my career leading first to full professorship and later full professorship and chairman and head of department.

Q3 To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

No longer a problem as I am a retired professor since 2019 though still active in research and in some clinical activities. In the past: I always had a nanny for my daughter – thanks to the support by my parents- which allowed me to pursue my career. Otherwise, Kindergarden and similar facilities for school children with opening hours adapted to the working hours of the female doctor are crucial and should be available at all sites. The clinical and scientific activities must fit in an acceptable time frame of working hours. Outside the clinical work this is quite accepted. In clinical work, excessive working hours are also a problem for male clinician scientists but even more for female clinician scientists in particular in surgical specialties such as ophthalmology. The society would have to come to a format where the amount of working hours is compatible with a life beyond = outside work , e.g. family with children. This could only be accomplished if for calculating staff numbers the real working hours would be taken into account. At present, this is not the case and I am not optimistic that this will change in the near future.

Q4 The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

That she has to be convinced of her dream to pursue a career in science and/or medicine. She must have a strong personality. sustainability and capable to tolerate frustations. Then, she has to dare make her plans public and not wait until somebody will propose. Nevertheless, she will need the support of her family, friends, mentors and colleagues to achieve her goals. Beyond all, she must love her work. Only passionates of their work will be really successful and also satisfied of their lives which is even more important.

Prof. Dr. med. Birgit Lorenz, FEBO, FARVO
Professorin emerita

Universitäts-Augenklinik Bonn
Dept of Ophthalmology
Universitätsklinikum Bonn

Venusberg- Campus 1 (Ernst Abbe Str. 2)
Gebäude 04/05
53127 Bonn,
Germany

Linda Lundström

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

We need to raise the awareness of how common it is with unequal treatment and how important it is to work with gender mainstreaming. It is only when we reflect upon our unconscious bias that we can act fair and make more objective judgements. Such a change in the working environment will be beneficial for anyone who differ from the norm.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

The PhD-students that I have supervised.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

Academia is a competitive environment, but my family is very supportive and made it possible for me to have an academic career at the same time as having kids. Additionally, the Swedish childcare system with parental leave for both parents has been essential.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

It is the most fun job you can have, you learn new things everyday that eventually can lead to discoveries that make life better for many persons.

Linda Lundström, Ph.D., Assoc. Prof.

Royal Institute of Technology / KTH - AlbaNova

SE-106 91 Stockholm
Sweden

Valeria Marigo

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

I am not sure if the suggestion can be widely shared, because some differences can be perceived in different European countries. Nevertheless, a common observation is that you find a high percentage of female PhD students and posdocs but the higher you go in the levels of the Academic career the less women you find and this is true in Ophthalmology as in other scientific fields.

We, women, sometimes have the feeling that we are not fully accepted to participate to some discussions, often key meetings for important decisions,that are monopolized by male scientists. I would like to see more inclusion in decision discussion.

I also sustain the request of EU of taking into account the female components in the collaborative teams that submit proposals. I often find myself the only female in some consortia. We should avoid the count of famales based on the number of students and postdocs hired in the project. This way, the impact of female scientist is not at the same level.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

I am most proud of the former young collaborators, PhD students or postdocs, that are now directing their own labs. It makes me happy following their achievements and reading their contribution to the field.

Secondly, I am gratified of having being able to do the work I loved and, even if it probably took me longer to reach full professorships than a male scientist, I am proud that the achievements arrived because of my work and dedication, a feeling that I probably share with female colleagues.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I moved a lot in different cities and this impacted my personal life. Personally, I have been fortunate but distance from the family undoubtedly can be more complicated for a woman compared to a male. Wives often follow husbands that accept a position in a different city, moving a husband can be more complicated.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

Dear young girl, the work of scientists is very fascinating because gives you the possibility to discover new things. Think, when you see a result in your lab you are the FIRST one in the world to acquire that knowledge, isn’t it fantastic? A second aspect is the share of the knowledge among all scientists in the world. In fact, a scientist is part of a wonderful community with common goals. I do not want to hide that there is competition among scientists but there is also collaboration, which really strengthen scientific research. A third upside is the awareness that your scientific achievements in medicine can ameliorate the life of patients if not even cure them. Finally, the collaborations with laboratories in your own country, but also abroad, widen your views not only for your professional life but also for your personal life. Therefore, as a woman you may need to accept some give-and-take in your everyday professional life but by being resolute and pursuing your scientific career you will be able to balance your ambition with desires in your personal life.

Valeria Marigo, PhD
Professor of Molecular Biology

Department of Life Sciences
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

Via G. Campi 287
41125 Modena,
Italy

María Miranda Sanz

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

My career is focused mainly in Vision Research, and as a pharmacist and physiologist I try to understand the mechanisms underlying vision related diseases in order to find new tretaments for these diseases. For this reason, my answers are related to the role of women in Research, and more precisely in Vision Research.

Though for the past decades many are the achievements, women are still underrepresented in science and there is still much to do.

Some pf the steps that can make this field more diverse are: 1) To increase specific support and opportunities for women. For those who decide to have a family, grants should include support for nurseries, school, etc or helps for the whole family to be able to move from one country to another; 2) To give more visibility to the achievements of women, for example to write the biographies or make movies about important women in Research; 3) To explain girls since they are young (at the school) the importance of science research.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

As a University teacher I am very proud of the learning and life skills of my students. It is a great opportunity to be able to observe how my students develop and mature and achieve all their professional goals. As a researcher, I am very proud about my research about the role of oxidative stress and the role of an important antioxidant such as glutathione in retinitis pigmentosa.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I have been able to blend my personal and my professional life. If I have to change one thing is that usually women need support mainly at home, because there are a lot of hours spent at the lab.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

We must explain science research and what is done in laboratories in schools. I would let that girl know that with research we are able to improve life of patients, people with diseases that have no cure or the whole world in general. I would tell her that you she is going to choose a difficult but exciting career. One of the sentences we like to use in my university is: “Why not?” and that is exactly the question I would ask her.

María Miranda Sanz

Departamento Ciencias Biomédicas,
Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud,
Universidad Cardenal Herrera-CEU,
CEU Universities, Valencia, Spain

C/ Ramón y Cajal s/n,
46115 Alfara del Patriarca – Valencia
Spain

Emeline Nandrot

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

It is true that female vision scientists numbers have grown over the years, but I still feel that lack of confidence and sometimes support from some male peers can make enough big an obstacle for the woman to make the forward push for her career. I think that seeing big from the beginning and not along the path can be crucial. We can dream big and go for it, believe in ourselves and not wait to check all the criteria to go on, as women are more prone to do. It can be a leap of faith, but once the step is taken it is so freeing!

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

On a personal basis, being the first in my Institute to obtain an NIH grant with my long-time collaborator. On a PI basis, having a team that works well together, seeing them grow professionally while being happy in what they do on an everyday basis. Being the first

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

That is definitely a very crucial and delicate part of the equation. I work a lot during the week but as soon as I leave the lab for the weekend I isolate myself and enjoy my passions, friends and family.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

Believe that it is possible, follow your guts and don't always listen to others advice if you feel you have to do otherwise to achieve your goal!

Emilie Nandrot

Institut de la Vision
Sorbonne Université, INSERM, CNRS

17 rue Moreau,
F-75012 Paris,
France

Anja Palmowski-Wolfe

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

  1. A quota system
    When I was younger, I did not feel this to be necessary, but now the observation in Q1 is still true and I think that this can probably be addressed most efficiently with a quota system as there are a lot of qualified females out there.
  2. More flexibility and self-management options:
    - Meeting times should be arranged during normal work hours and during the week and not on weekends or evenings. People (men and women) with care responsibilities may have to pick up children from daycare or school and may only be able to continue work later at night at unpredictable hours.
  3. -. i.e. the option of part-time positions for both men and women should be acceptable
  4. Active recruitment and coaching of women:
    - as it has been shown that women only tend to apply for higher positions if they feel that they are really wanted on that position, that is that they are an almost 100% match for the job description and if they would really take that particular position if successful.
    - Coaching for future female leaders – starting early in the career- in order to encourage women to actively apply for positions even if not all requirements posted are met- I have heard that this is a successful program in British Universities.
  5. Good training and career opportunities
    In ophthalmology in particular, at least in Germany and I also believe in other European countries, most ophthalmology clinics are headed by retina specialists, mostly retina surgeons. Other full professorships such as in strabismus have been eliminated to cut costs, and full professorships in other areas such as electrophysiology exist rarely, if at all.
    In surgical training it is generally - for reasons unknown to me - more difficult for women to get taught then for men. However, surgical training seems at present to be the prerequisite to become head of a clinic and therefore more influential in forming a path in ophthalmology in the area. So preferably the surgical training should be made more accessible but also, and maybe even more importantly, the politics should be influenced, so that not only retinal surgeons see a way into the future ie can become heads of a clinic.
  6. Training in “Unconscious Bias” is extremely important
  7. Networking
  8. Mentoring
  9. Fellowship Programs

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

  • To have a family anyway
    (yes, I consciously put this first because I think it is important to show that you can do good research even if you have a family and I do not think that is in a lot of people's awareness yet)
  • I cannot really answer this well, as I see my professional achievements as a succession of achievements.– once achieved, the next is beckoning. And I am happy to be able to follow my interests, to have a great team at work, to have a good network in research collaborators and to help collaboration between clinicians and scientists gaining importance and recognition

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

  • I have a pretty good balance with a husband who “has my back” and some flexibility in scheduling (flexibility could be improved by more independent planning of “off” days)
  • It would help if administration would support integrating personal and professional life r

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

  • Follow your interests
  • Go and do some practica in different areas so that you get an idea of where you might want to go: basic research or patients or both
  • If interested in both: good, then do both- science and medicine (so you always have the option of financial independence through private practice -even if part time- if research grant money fails)
  • Look to do a good and challenging Master and Doctor thesis- a good start to form interests and connections
  • Present at conferences. Active participation leads to more contacts and to more ideas.
  • Enter a good fellowship program in the area of your research and clinical interests
  • Think about career goals early (if you can) so that you can plan ahead
  • Network - be fair, help others and let yourself be helped
  • Learn about male, female communication patterns and “unconscious bias” early
  • Do not sacrifice family- there is never a right time, so go for it too.
  • There is hope for change as there is a predominance of female students in medicine now (personal observation) so I think that in 20 years when that girl finished residency and fellowship - things are probably going to be different.
  • Learn about administration and IT too if you can, as more and more is ruled by administration, cost effectiveness considerations and IT- so you have to know about it too if you want to be able to have a say.

Prof. Dr. Anja Palmowski-Wolfe

Leitende Ärztin
Strabologie, Neuro-Ophthalmologie und Kinderaugenheilkunde

Universitäts-Augenklinik Basel

Erasmuskoordinatorin der medizinischen Fakultät Basel

Tunde Peto

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

  • Create an environment where women are comfortable, this will include the some man might need to make a conscious effort in understanding that women behave differently and allow women to do so
  • Enable different entry points to certain progression schemes as the current guidelines for many are very restrictive and automatically exclude women (for example the issue of 5 years within PhD you must apply for…., many women have children after PhD and so if they do take maternity leave, they are disadvantaged already, if they cannot apply for early career development grants etc, then they will remain disadvantaged for the rest of their life)
  • Have active monitoring for women being recognised for their work as they are less likely to put themselves forward or be nominated by a male colleague who is already in the position of power

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Having been instrumental in establishing diabetic eye screening in several areas around the World

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I need to blend personal and professional life frequently and to a great extent. You need to be able to communicate clearly what you can and cannot do both with the workplace and with your family so they all understand. Changes to accepted work practices, not having the expectation of being constantly available, provision of flexible childcare arrangements and accepting that women are still carrying a disproportionate burden of caring responsibilities, therefore already work longer hours should all be beneficial. These would create thinking space and make good use of working time whenever these might be during the day.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I would tell her that it will be hard at times, but the rewards that come from doing this job are phenomenal and that there is nothing better than being able to contribute to people being able to see and carry on with their lives normally.

Professor Tunde Peto

School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences
Queen’s University Belfast

University Road, Belfast
Northern Ireland, BT7 1NN

Jugnoo Rahi

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

    1. Showcase a variety of role models – women who have succeeded in different areas – as clinicians, scientists, clinician scientists, educators and policy makers – especially those have also addressed specific challenges in achieving their success
    2. Ensure men are in the conversations – women talking to women isn’t going to make change happen
    3. Each of us with leadership roles need to be checking – in the moment – whether ALL the best talent is ‘in the room’ when (and preferably before) decisions are being made.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

That my appointment as the UK’s first Professor of Ophthalmic Epidemiology meant my scientific discipline had ‘arrived’ in the world of ophthalmology.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I don’t see blending my personal and professional life as a problem in itself, and deadlines never come at convenient moment. But it takes active work to keep a healthy balance.

One thing that could make a difference to women is if ‘networking’ was done differently. I think flying half way round the world to give a talk or, worse still, ‘to be seen’ at conference can end up only serving to put the spotlight on those who have the time (and other resources) to do this – this is turn usually mean that the same people are talking to the same people each time on the ‘conference circuit’. This is an important component of the glass ceiling for many (women and men), especially those who have caring responsibilities. The pandemic has shown us that there are other ways to achieve meaningful scientific exchange. I think it's important we retain some of these creative solutions that have helped us remain connected and improved access for all.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

Medicine and science are both ‘team sports’ that benefit from diversity in the team members. View being a girl as an asset!

Jugnoo S Rahi

Professor of Ophthalmic Epidemiology and Honorary Consultant Ophthalmologist

NIHR Senior Investigator

Head, Vision and Eyes Group UCL

Head Population Policy and Practice Research and Teaching Department GOS ICH UCL

Director, Ulverscroft Vision Research Group

GOS Institute of Child Health UCL / Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Institute of Ophthalmology UCL / NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre

Chair, Academic Committee

Chair, British Ophthalmological Surveillance Unit Executive Committee

Contact:

Population, Policy and Practice Research and Teaching Department

GOS Institute of Child Health UCL, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH

Christina Schwarz

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

  • Not only include the wish for diversity in the mission statement of your institute but also diversify admission staff and faculty to provide role models for students and new hires
  • Routinely educate search committees, faculty, staff and students about anti-discrimination, harassment, and unconscious bias
  • Implement truly family-friendly policies, such as creating on-campus programs and facilities that support faculty members with young children

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

The professional achievement I am most proud of was a complex research study where many different people were involved. Apart from the scientific difficulty, it required a lot of organization, task scheduling and communication. The timeline was essential, and every step had to work out for the study to be successful. Even though it is not the work I got the most recognition for, it is the one I am most pleased with.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I think if you are passionate about your work, you always tend to blend your personal and professional life to some extent. So far, I have never been uncomfortable with that. However, now that we are expecting our first child in the next couple of weeks, I have been starting to worry about balancing family and work in the future. I would like to have the opportunity to come back to work after a couple of weeks. However, flexible childcare is a huge problem. Since researchers rarely work where their extended family is located, they cannot count on their support but need to rely on childcare provided by the city or their employer. My university offers only a little more than 100 openings for childcare starting from age 1. The openings are too few and the start date is too late if you want to stay connected and visible in science. There is an urgent need for the university to act. Luckily, my partner is extremely supportive, and we share household and childcare the best we can.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

Hard work will set the basis for everything you want to achieve. At the same time, it is just as important to be well-connected and to be at the right spot at the right time. In my opinion perseverance is key to being successful in the science and medicine field. Rejected papers and grant proposal are just one part of our daily life. Occasionally, the time is not yet right for a certain kind of research. It can take years or even decades to get thus far, which requires both- continuous pushing and patience.

Dr. Christina Schwarz
Junior Research Group Leader

High-Resolution Retinal Imaging & Testing
Institute for Ophthalmic Research
University of Tübingen

Elfriede-Aulhorn-Str. 7
72076 Tübingen
Germany

Sobha Sivaprasad

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

  • Consider female gender and ethnic minority as a priority until equality is established.
  • Female mothers have more challenging lives so flexible working hours
  • Age should not have an upper limit as females are likely to require career breaks.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Becoming a Professor in UCL despite a meandering career route.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

All the time - females need to multitask more to reach where they need to and flexibility in working environment is key.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

Go for it but please always remember you need to always maintain your work-life balance

Professor Sobha Sivaprasad

Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL

London
EC1V 2PD
United Kingdom

Enrica Strettoi

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

The most difficult part is the beginning, when the wish of starting up a family lifeyou’re your own lab overlap. A great help could come from:

Support for families and baby care, provided also from professional Institutions (i.e. Universities, Research Organizations, Hospitals) near the workplaces.

Facilitated (or increased availability of) access to start-up funding in research.

Alleviation of administrative burden and simplification of procedures in public administration, so that real, effective time is dedicated to research and to clinical activities rather that to bureaucracy. Waste of time in endless protocols is a heavy load often on women’s shoulders.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

I am very proud of the fact that the majority of my former PhD students and lab members (who, incidentally, have been, and are, mostly young women) maintain an interest in science and do active research. This suggests that I have been a good motivator and that I triggered young people’s curiosity, being (a surely imperfect, but surely possible) role model.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I believe that such a blend is fundamental and that it relies more on multiplication than on division. Multiplication (or the ability to be multitasking and yet to remain focussed) is something almost natural to women and yet quite demanding on a regular base. Blending of profession and personal life often comes with the secret acceptance that reaching too high professional goals is not for you, and that should change. Multitasking should be appreciated and valued.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I would like her to know how beautiful nature is and how intriguing and challenging is to try to penetrate its mysteries and to heal its wounds. It takes imagination and lots of perseverance and strength; doing science is an immense privilege that keeps part of you forever 12 years old.

Enrica Strettoi

Research Director

CNR Neuroscience Institute, Pisa, Italy

Adj. Professor of Neurogenomics, University of Pisa

Member, ARVO Award Committee

Moorfields Eye Hospital Research Foundation, London

Marie-José Tassignon

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

Medical doctors are not educated to become leaders but to become MDs, dedicated to improve knowledge and skills and improve patient’s condition. Ironically, reaching a high level of knowledge and skills takes more time now than in the past thirty decades because knowledge increases exponentially. Combining education, continuous learning and family is may be more demanding in 2021 than it was thirty years ago. Not everybody has the gift of good leadership. However, it is important defining the criteria for good leadership and helping colleagues to discover whether they have the necessary skills. Free optional dedicated courses during basic medicine education, might increase awareness for leadership by waking up the curiosity of men or women to become interested in leadership functions.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

What impressed me most is when I wrote in 1997 a patent on a new concept of IOL implantation. In parallel, I had to find a manufacturer and to be sure about the surgical steps. I performed virtually many procedures in my mind, typically before falling asleep. Exercising in post-mortem donor eyes first and then in animals increased my learning process and as a consequence the degree of confidence and reassuring myself the technique should work. Then came the day of applying the technique in human eyes after ethical committee approval. All criticism expressed by the (international/national) colleagues like: you will find the lens back on the retina, it will not work, are you crazy, you will increase postoperative complications like CME and retinal detachment. The first patient was a 4-year-old child. No need to tell I had a very bad night that day until I saw the child back the day after surgery. She made a drawing with her operated eye (the contralateral eye was due for surgery the week after) and she proudly gave me the drawing with the most beautiful smile one can expect of a four year-old child. I was relieved and knew the patent was worth doing, even it was to make one child happy and offering her a future normal life. Since then, I did not stop fighting against criticism and continued proving its superiority on all expressed criticism. The only criticism I was unable to refute was the loss of financial income because that lens design eradicates PCO and makes YAG laser capsulotomy obsolete. I sadly realised that ophthalmologists make their IOL choices not on rational arguments but on financial interests. Luckily, I had excellent followers with high ethical standards and who confirmed the benefit of the bag-in-the-lens design through their personal experience.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

Making the balance between personal and professional life is an ongoing process that will never stop. I had a long career as leader of 26 years. This means that my children had first to get their basic training, then make their choice for their future career, then start their family and then concentrating on their career. Here came the time I had to be more selective in my workload because of the grandchildren. This was not that difficult when confronted with their needs and their happiness to be in close contact with their grandparents including being their educational and role model.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

This is exactly the age of my first grandchild. At that age, the children are still open for many options. They enjoy to experiment and are not afraid to learn. My most important message to them is that life is a continuous learning platform in very diverse topics and that learning will never end whatever choice they will make. Curiosity is a gift but can be stimulated in those children who are less gifted. Curiosity is the guarantee for continuous learning and discovery. They should know there is still so much to discover. Confronting them to your own limitations in knowledge is I think the best educational message.

Tassignon Marie-José, MD, PhD, FEBO, FEBOS-CR

Past Chief and Chair Department of Ophthalmology

Antwerp University and University Hospital Antwerp, Belgium

Drie Eikenstraat 655, 2650 Edegem-Antwerp, Belgium

Elena Vecino Cordero

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

To induce the visibility of women in science, I am not in favor of promoting mandatory inclusive laws, but since the presence of women in decision-making positions is not progressing adequately, I think that we should establish some rules with percentages of representation to motivate the participation of women in the main decision-making bodies:

  • In evaluation committees: About a 50% of women should be decision members.
  • In Conferences and Meetings: About a 50% of women should be main speakers and moderators.
  • In grant consortiums applications: About a 50% of female Principal Investigators should apply.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

To be the first woman to become Full Professor in my Department and now to be the senior Professor out of 30 faculty members. Coming from another University to become Professor is really difficult, if you don’t have any internal support, but I am happy to demonstrate to other women that it is possible. Moreover, to be the PI of a research group that has been working together for 26 years including multidisciplinary members (ophthalmologists, biologists, biochemists, veterinarians, pharmacists) has been also very challenging.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

Without a doubt during my first years, after having a child, it was very difficult to combine my professional activity and my personal life. There was no institutional possibility of getting flexible schedules and I decided to stay at home without salary for several months to prepare my promotion to Full Professor at the same time. Also, during the period of time when my son was very young I had to give up attending conferences or meetings away from home.

I think this could be solved with a mandatory paternal substitution, so that the father can take care of the child. This has become mandatory in Spain very recently. In addition, after that first period it is necessary that parents can have a more flexible schedule for several months. And in the case of scholarships or interim contracts to be able to extend maternity leave without any type of punishment.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

I will tell her that she can do anything she wants to do and that she can go wherever she wants to go. But the road is hard, it is necessary to work hard because science and research require a lot of dedication. For that reason, they must choose in their lives companions who understand their situation. It is very difficult to explain this dedication to people who are not in that environment. So without a partner who understands that, it is even more difficult. But there is nothing that cannot be achieved, whether you are a man or a woman.

Elena Vecino

Professor of Cell Biology
PI of Experimental Ophthalmo-Biology Group
(www.ehu.eus/gobe)

Dpto. Cell Biology and Histology
Faculty of Medicine
University of the Basque Country

Barrio Sarriena s/n,
48940 Leioa, Vizcaya
SPAIN

Margaret Veruki

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

It seems that women are entering the fields of research and medicine in large numbers, but the difficulty is keeping them as they start families. So it seems critical to provide flexible on-site or nearby childcare and more generous parental-leave opportunities. I was lucky to be in Norway when I had my children, and I was able to take a year of leave with each of them.

I also think that universities and institutions need to recognize that the contributions from women can be very different than those of men in the field, but just as valuable in terms of building a diverse and inclusive environment to educate and train young scientists. So whereas the criteria for decisions about hiring, promotions, and salary raises must always take into account scientific and teaching quality, it might also be important to include other factors, such as community outreach and mentoring activities.

Finally, I think there needs to be more emphasis on both informal and formal mentorships. Mentoring allows a setting where we learn from each other and support each other, with the important consequence that we recognize our common challenges and can come up with creative solutions.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Retinal neurons are beautiful and diverse, and there are still so many secrets to discover. I have been doing patch-clamp recording of neurons in the retina for over 30 years, and I still do experiments whenever possible. I started with dissociated neurons, then slices, then from one recording pipette to multi-electrode recordings combined with 2-photon imaging, and I still get a thrill every time I seal on a cell.

Several of my most cited papers resulted from following up on a chance observation not related to the experiment at the time. Therefore, I think it is important and valuable to avoid being too focused on a specific hypothesis, but instead stay close to the lab bench and look very carefully at the raw data. Do not ignore the little oddities in the data that you cannot explain because that is where your next breakthrough may be.

I was recently instrumental in developing (along with one of my PhD students, Rémi Fournel) and finding funding for an exhibit about how the retina processes information at the VilVite Science Centre in Bergen. This public outreach project, involving switchBoard, an Innovative Training Network (ITN) funded by the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme under the Marie Curie Actions, was one of the most fun and rewarding activities in my professional life. (https://www.uib.no/en/med/112179/opened-new-eye-exhibition).

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I think too much focus on achieving balance can actually discourage women from careers in science and medicine, as it does not seem possible to have that elusive “balance”. I don’t think that balance is “one-size-fits-all” and there is certainly no perfect balance for any of us. That said, we each need to find our own balance. We should not feel guilty, or be made to feel guilty if our idea of “balance” is not someone else’s idea of balance, or if the balance tips one way or the other for shorter or longer periods. Balance involves making choices and setting your own priorities, and taking care of your physical and mental health.

It is, however, only fair to say that my personal and professional life are about as blended as they could be, and it is often very difficult to say where one ends and the other begins. My husband and I met as postdocs and started working together after we got married. After 25 years we are still married, running a joint laboratory, and we have raised two amazing children who were never (overly) bothered to spend after-school hours or (some) weekends at the lab. This has worked out very well for me, but it is definitely not an option (or even desirable) for everyone.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

There are so many things to tell a 12-year-old girl. I would tell her to stay in school and take all the science courses she can, to be fearless about her passions and to keep her eyes wide open for opportunities to learn. She shouldn’t compare herself to others, but rather concentrate on being the best she can be. I would tell her to be less concerned about avoiding failures, and more concerned about learning from failures. I would tell her to look for her own path, and that there is not one right (or wrong) path. Finally, as my own daughter always reminds me, I would remind her to find the joy in her journey.

Margaret (Meg) Veruki, PhD
Professor

University of Bergen
Department of Biomedicine

Jonas Lies vei 91
N-5009 Bergen,
Norway

Marcela Votruba

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

I tend not to belive that government will make all the difference- we have the power in our networks and professional communities to make change. The obstacles are often the result of work life balance and being forced to make choices. Childcare is vital but staying connected to your family is probably even more important! Being able to take some time out and work flexibly when it is needed are very important.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Working on mitochondrial eye diseasse and opening up a new world in my own knowledge- I am so glad that I have the opportunity to make a small difference to the lives of patients and families.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I think that accepting that you will have to be very flexible with your time and allow for blening the professional and the personal makes it easier to fit it all in. There has to be give and take between these two areas. That allows you to adapt to last minute changes, fit in new things and work around deadlines. I do not work by setting boundaries and ring-fencing- this would makew it more difficult to respond to home or work crises.

What would I change- a parallel universe where time runs slower!

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

It is totally possible and within your grasp- never start out thinking you can't do this. A mind set of positive energy and enthusiasm gets you a long way. You need to be tenacious and try to keep the bigger picture in fopcus. Do not let small set backs assume too much importancer. But don't expect it without hard work, committment and dedication. If anything in life is worth doing it requires working at!

Marcela Votruba MA BM BCh FRCOphth PhD FLSW
Professor of Ophthalmology & Consultant Ophthalmologist

Cardiff University & University `Hospital Wales,
Cardiff, Wales,
UK

Stela Vujosevic

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

Support/encourage surgical training for female ophthalmologist

Set a quote of female full professor position in each country

Divide the number of board members (scientific/professional societies as well as in scientific journals) between males and females

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

National Italian qualification for full professor in ophthalmology

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

This is a quite challenging issue, that I am still struggling in everyday life and I am not sure if doing it right. I think that less working hours (in terms of quantity), but better in quality of work could be helpful. From the wider perspective, it may depend based on the specific country and social/family facilities (tailored for the doctor working needs).

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

… that this is not an ordinary work but a life mission… and a lot of passion, determination and perserverance will be needed to pursue this path which can bring a great satisfaction in helping cure people.

Stela Vujosevic, MD, PhD, FEBO
Head of Medical Retina Service

Eye Clinic, San Giuseppe Hospital, IRCCS MultiMedica, Milano, Italy

Via San Vittore 12,
20123 Milano,
Italy

Barbara Wilhelm

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

  1. Awareness of working group leaders of the value of mixed teams at all levels paving the ground for female careers.
  2. Coaching (by senior female researchers and ophthalmologists) for female researchers and ophthalmologist starting at the very beginning of their professional lives.
  3. Flexible working times and measures like home office days or periods to facilitate family tasks with professional engagement.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

I am most proud of having built up a specific trial unit with a focus on the translation of ophthalmological research (e.g., gene therapy) into clinical trials at the Centre for Ophthalmology at the University Hospital of Tübingen. This could happen due to the support of a great team of physicians and non-physicians.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

This did always develop naturally in my case and I can hardly see the need for a general change. Real breaks in work-free times like hours or days offline are rather important from my perspective to retain resilience. Of the same reasons I regard it essential to save enough time for own hobbies and contacts with friends.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

The deep pleasure waiting for her in these areas and the need for a sound amount of persistence and sometimes stubbornness to reach her goals.

Steinbeis-Transferzentrum Eyetrial am Department für Augenheilkunde

Elfriede-Aulhorn-Straße 7
72076 Tübingen
Germany

Christina Zeitz

Q1: Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

  1. Enough support for child care should be provided; e.g. I was really afraid about a negative remark of my English and French bosses when I announced that I am pregnant. I was concerned also because I did not yet have a permanent position and worried that having children would negatively impact my ability to secure a permanent position. Fortunately, the responses were positive. Positive experiences like this may reduce, or even diminish guilt, experienced by many women who want to follow a career path in Science and want to have children. Women should be supported to enable them to combine career and family. I did experience such support as I was far advanced with my first pregnancy when I obtained a permanent INSERM position in France after the oral competition. Everybody in France knows that most of the women will come back to work after a three-months maternity leave, which is perhaps not possible or wished in other countries.
  2. Women having a successful career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology should be presented as role models. Programs to do this are already existing at international conferences and this should continue. Progress has been also made in diversifying opportunities to work in science by creating positions in the area of publishing and evaluations. However, the majority of higher positions are still occupied by males.

Q2: What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Getting a research position in 2007 at the Institut de la Vision in Paris, which became permanent in 2010 after the INSERM competition and receiving a director position in 2015 after another INSERM competition.

Q3: To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

I feel very happy and satisfied, so I do not want to change my personal situation. Of course, a balance is very individual. My career and family balance work well for me. The children are at school or have after-school activities from 8h30 until 18h. Normally my husband brings the children to school, so I can work a bit earlier and I bring them back home, so he can work a bit later. They do not seem to miss their parents during day-time, which I contribute to a) an exciting program that they attend and b) to the fact that their peers are in a comparable situation. Of course, Covid-19 times were challenging my established balance, but I guess this was the same for everybody.

Q4: The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what would you most want her to know?

Do what you really want to do. If you have a passion for science or medicine and you want study and work in this field you need to work hard but you will have a lot of fun too!

Christina Zeitz PhD, DR2

INSERM, UMR_S968
CNRS, UMR_7210
Sorbonne University

Institut de la Vision
Department of Genetics

17, rue Moreau
75012 Paris
France

Sandrine Zweifel

Q1 Although their presence has grown steadily for the past 3 decades, women hoping for a career in Vision Research and Ophthalmology still face many obstacles. What would be in your opinion the three most important steps to make the field more diverse?

The goal should be to train and encourage young promising students (both men and women) early in their career. During my academic progression, I was lucky to have the chance to work with several very inspiring women and men. My fellowships were crucial for my career and I think it is important to support young researchers to go abroad. My mentors have encouraged me to always aim a little higher than I would have instinctively done, even if it seemed out of reach.

Recently I received a “thank you” letter from a young female colleague, who spent some time in my research team at the Department of Ophthalmology at the University Hospital in Zurich: “I admired a lot the incredible team spirit you created but also how professional you are at work. Personally, I also admire you as a woman and as a professional figure”. Role models are crucial to help guide individual developments and to encourage women to follow a path in Vision Research and Ophthalmology with confidence.

Protected research time especially for clinicians is a good instrument to dedicate some time to research projects while being relieved of some of the clinical duties. I had the chance to be strongly supported by my institution and by the University of Zurich receiving a “Forschungskredit” supporting me in my early career.

Q2 What is your professional achievement you are most proud of?

Knowing through my own experiences how profound the impact of one good teacher/mentor can be I wish to give back those qualities meaning to me most during my education: stimulating curiosity, inspiring people to get the maximum out of their potential and sharing your passion and knowledge whenever you can.

To establish an independent research team and to create an environment were the strengths and skills of each other is appreciated promoting each member of the team to thrive for excellence is one of my achievements I am very proud of. To see my team members grow, to see them “shine” on their own and having success fills me with happiness and proud.

Q3 To what extent do you have to blend your personal and your professional life to achieve a balance? What should change?

It is the biggest challenge, having a supportive environment is essential to make it work. But I often feel that a day is too short to fit in everything I would like to do. I am passionate about my work and I see it as a vocation. A career in my opinion is a job that you are passionate about and that you love, something where you are willing to make sacrifices, you are willing to work extra hours, because you believe in your mission. It infringes on my personal life at times.

Q4 The next time you talk to a 12-year-old girl who shows a passion for science and medicine, what you most want her to know?

If she has passion and the curiosity to learn about new things, science offers an endless world to explore. I would tell her that if she likes what she is doing, she will be happy and successful! But she needs to know “talent is never enough, persistence is the key of success”.

PD Dr. med. Sandrine Zweifel
FEBO FMH Ophth / Ophth Surg Vice Chair

Department of Ophthalmology
University Hospital Zurich

Frauenklinikstrasse 24
CH-8091 Zürich
Switzerland

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